If you'd told me I was going to start my 50th birthday in VR, on top of a giant tower in Coachela letting off virtual fireworks with Imogen Heap, I wouldn't have believed you.

In fact as I type it I'm not sure I quite believe it myself !

That's what happened, though. There was also a giant snail. And before that we were in a re-created VR version of the end of Pink Floyd's The Wall, complete with virtual hammers...

Which is all very well for me, and made for a pretty unique start to my birthday, but why am I writing a blog post about it ?

Well, the reason I was there was that we were being given an after-show tour by Greg Edwards, who designs virtual worlds in the VR app AltSpace. And Imogen had just finished doing a virtual gig in one of those 'worlds', in which she jammed live using her MiMu gloves and Tim Exile's collaborative online music app Endlesss, with other members of the community. Which is what that image at the top of the screen shows.

This event was the "launch party" for a new idea Imogen and Tim have been working on – raising funds for Imogen's Creative Passport project by releasing her Firsts project – carbon-neutral collectible art in the form of NFTs made using Endlesss.

An NFT is a bit like a limited edition print, book or video, in digital form. They can be bought using a cryptocurrency called Ethereum, and if you buy one you'll always be able to prove you own it, like a digital certificate that can't be forged. They appeal particularly to collectors and so could also become quite valuable over time.

NFTs are a controversial topic though, because of the very high environmental cost of the Ethereum blockchain, but don't stop reading this if that's something you care about, because Imogen does too. She's committed to making sure her NFTs don't have a negative impact, by donating a percentage of any proceeds to Nori, a company who specialise in offsetting the carbon used by making use of technology like this. The goal in fact is to make these NFTs carbon-negative, so there will actually be less carbon in the atmosphere after their release than there was before.

She's also been very careful to include a fair 'split' for everyone involved in every stage of the project, because ultimately that's what its all about – raising money for the Creative Passport, which aims to provide a central digital 'identity' for people in the creative industries, helping them get known, found – and ultimately, paid.

And that's where the buzz about NFTs comes from. They offer the possibility that musicians and other artists could genuinely start to be fairly compensated when their art is shared and sold.

For example, a new band could start out giving away NFTs for free, but then if they start to become more successful, the blockchain would track any future sales, and make sure they get their share, automatically.

When you imagine combining this idea with a central hub of artist-controlled information like the Creative Passport, the possibilities are huge. And not just for musicians and artists. Even engineers and programmers can get a share of the benefits – like Simon Heyworth, Imogen's mastering engineer.

And that's why I wrote this post – to encourage you to start finding out about these topics too. Even if you have concerns about the environmental impact of cryptocurrency, the great news is that there are already ways to mitigate it - and even Ethereum will solve this issue itself in time, using something called 'proof of stake'. There's a long way to go, but the opportunities are huge, and projects like this one are just the beginning.

And along the way, you might get to have some fun hanging out in VR with giant snails.

Find out more about Imogen's 'Firsts' project here. And maybe I'll see you in AltSpace sometime...